Friday, 11 September 2015

another city goes by in the night....

I often find myself so full of song that I simply can't contain myself and it bursts out of me. This often happens in the strangest of places. I once scared the life out of someone when skiing past them on a mountain, singing "Folsom Prison Blues" at full volume. I also spent a very happy ride up a chairlift, possibly on the same trip, by singing this beautiful bit of classic Harry Belafonte. I'm not sure what everyone else on the chairlift thought, but I really enjoyed myself. I'm keen to suggest this as a song for a future season at choir too. Quite apart from what a great bass part it would be, I can't help but wonder that, if we sang "It Must Be Love" by Madness in a cockney accent, what on earth would we make of this? And wouldn't it sound splendid?

Memorably used (along with the rest of "Jagged Little Pill") by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in "A Trip to Italy", but for some reason well beyond my ken, has been stuck in my head all week. It's catchy, isn't it? And no, please don't bother yourself to tell me how ironic it is that Alanis doesn't really know what irony is. It's a song, innit. It's just a song.

Not a favourite of mine, but that opening guitar is going round and round. I must listen to this album, actually... stopping before the abomination that is "SYMM" comes on at the very end of the record. Worst song the Manics ever recorded? Well, for my money it is.

It's that time of year again where I get to play musical godfather and make a birthday CD for the daughter of a friend of mine. It started for her fifth birthday, when I started with 5-4-3-2-1 by Manfred Mann. Last year opened up with the beautiful Burt and Ernie song, "My Favorite Number is six".... and now I need to think of an opening track that features the number seven. An early candidate was "Seven Days" by Craig David, but I'm not honestly sure that it's child friendly. The Clash, maybe? Seven Nation Army? In preparation, I've been absorbing the playlist that I made last year. It's hard to go wrong with this as a choice for the second track on your second CD, eh? Great song. I might put some Taylor Swift on this year. And Toto. And the Wombles. Nothing if not eclectic.

It's that time of year when spiders start coming indoors. As everyone knows, spiders speak with a scottish accent (a bit like private Frazer from Dad's Army). Our cat brought an earwig into the house the other day, and left the poor thing stunned on the carpet. We both peered at it.
"I think he looks Scottish too"
"He looks more Scottish than a spider does"
"Nope. Spiders are definitely Scottish"
"Ok"
This is the level of conversation in our house.

Mike Skinner was ahead of his time, I think. He unique blend of styles sounded like nobody else fifteen years ago, but either the mainstream has come back towards him, or he's been massively influential, because this sort of style of thing feels much more common now. Maybe both. I quite like the version of this featuring Chris Martin off of Coldplay, but you can't go much wrong with the original. Plenty more fish in the sea.

Another song with a killer intro. This popped into my head because I was thinking about Gnarls Barkley, who covered this... and although their version is decent, it's really not a patch on the original....

I've just booked a couple of tickets to see them perform at Nottingham Arena in the winter. They seem an unlikely stadium band to me, but apparently it absolutely works (they've played Madison Square Garden, for goodness sake). You'd imagine they're too niche and awkward, but if a bunch of gibbons like Kasabian can do it, doesn't it warm the heart when an actually interesting band makes it. No one can tell me that this is a sexy song, though. If that's how you think it's done, mate, then I think you're doing it wrong.

"Somewhere in Time" is not my favourite 'classic' Iron Maiden album by a long shot, although I did used to have the poster on my wall. I've been listening to some old Iron Maiden this week though, and it's always a real pleasure when this pops up. I remember when I was abotu thirteen and it was always a real triumph when Maiden got any airplay on the radio (even when they had a number one single!). Imagine my surprise to read a full, balanced review of their latest album in the Guardian, of all places. Maybe after all this time, they're finally becoming respectable. They're a landmark band for me and I really need to put more effort into listening to some of their more recent albums, because they're a great band and the music is still really good. You can't always be listening to "Powerslave".